We Can Help!

Buy

Sell

Home Valuation

About Dave Fratello

About MB Confidential

What Happy Clients Say

Confidential Realty

Best Deals of 2008 – Hill Section

In this first of 3 parts, we look at the "best deals" on homes purchased in Manhattan Beach in 2008.

What qualifies a home to be one of the "best deals?"

Inevitably, at least for MBC, price adjustments are a big factor, but not the only factor. We'll see comparisons to prior sales, evaluations of how some buyers made their deals non-conventionally, and we'll go with the gut on which homes just seemed great and changed hands for fair prices.

As is often our practice here at MBC, we'll look at SFRs west of Sepulveda by section (Hill, Sand and Trees). First up today, the Hills.

Hill Section

Best Deal of 2008, Hills: 808 Highview looked like it would be the deal of the year, before a late entrant from the Sand Section stole the mantle. (See our next installment.)

The particulars: This terrific, large (5br/5ba, 4575 sq. ft.) ocean-view home was purchased new in Dec. 2002 for $3.1m. It hit the market in June 2008 at $5.250m, priced almost perfectly in line with the increase in MB's median price of 69% over that period.

But there came a time after several months on the market when the sellers just wanted out. They took $3.6m – a discount of $1.650m (-31%) from start, and a markup of only 16% over the purchase price 6 years earlier. (See "High Up, But Below Trend" for more.)

Honorable mention: 911 Duncan is a slick, architecturally interesting modern with ocean views. The price adjusted about $600k (-15%) to close at $3.190m in February.

Not bad, in all, for a distinctive, fairly large (5br/6ba, 3700 sq. ft.) new home.

Honorable mention: 914 2nd(pictured a bit below) is a sizable, newer (2000), ocean-view home (4br/4ba, 4300 sq. ft.) that sold pretty quickly for a bit less than $3m ($2.920m).

That chop was just 10% off the start price of $3.250m, but the end result was a great, luxurious Hill Section estate going for less than $700/PSF.

Not getting a formal mention:900 Pacific qualified already as MB's priciest home of 2008. (See "High/Low Prices for 2008.") It sold for an eye-popping $9.85m, but it's easy to forget that the buyers took a very quick $1m off the asking price of $10.9m. Discounts of $1m or more seem increasingly common in these parts.